Chapter 37
Nevan
Istitched up my last patient of the day, the sun sinking over the horizon, lighting up the room in a golden hue.
The new spectacles I’d had made sat on the bridge of my nose, and I pushed them up, hating that just having them made me think of Enid, think of how I had to get new spectacles because she’d stepped on mine. And all that did was make my heart clench tight in pain.
I watched as my patient left, the door clicking closed. Then I let myself collapse, head and arms resting on the table in the middle of the room. I’d been numb since yesterday when Enid had made it clear she didn’t want a relationship.
What I couldn’t figure out was why.
Maybe she’d been alone so long she had no interest in sharing a life with another person. I couldn’t blame her, but the entire interaction had crushed my soul. I’d barely been able to function today, going through the motions as best I could.
A knock sounded on the door, and I lifted my head as the door swung open, Cillian appearing in the doorway.
“I’m really not in the mood,” I said.
I hadn’t seen him since a few days ago when he was drunk off his ass at my mother’s cottage.
Cillian stepped inside. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” I said drily. “But I meant it. I’m not in the mood to talk, Cillian.”
Cillian rubbed the back of his neck. “You don’t have to do the talking. I came by to say that I’m sorry.”
That was unexpected. Cillian very rarely apologized. I sat up a little straighter. “Sorry for what, exactly?” I wanted to hear him say it.
Cillian sighed and sat in my patient chair in front of me. “For not seeing how overworked and tired you’ve been.”
Ah. I crossed my arms. “I wondered how much of that night you remembered.”
He let out a humorless laugh. “Not all of it. But Wolfe didn’t hold back when he visited and gave me the rundown. Then Mother visited, and she didn’t hold back either. Between the two of them, I got quite the scolding.” He sighed. “I’m sorry I was such an ass.”
“You’ve said sorry twice now.” I narrowed my gaze. “Are you feeling sick?”
Cillian punched my arm. “I’ll take it all back,” he warned, and I laughed for the first time all day.
“I quit.”
Cillian’s shoulders slumped, but he didn’t argue.
“I’ll stick around to train a replacement, but”—I gestured to my shelves of potions—“I’m ready to open my own apothecary shop in town.”
“Okay,” Cillian said simply.
Godwitches, why had I never done this before? Saying those words out loud, standing up for what I wanted, lifted a huge weight from my shoulders.
Cillian rubbed his temples, looking so impossibly tired.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “You’ve seemed on edge lately.”
He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “That’s a word for it. I’m just under a lot of stress trying to keep Fairwitch safe from all these looming threats.”
I studied him. “No, that’s not it. We’ve always been in danger, ever since you became high prince. But you haven’t ever been like this. You have eye bags, Cillian.”
He gasped and jabbed a finger at me. “Take that back.”
“Have you not looked in a mirror recently?”
Cillian loved looking at himself in any reflective surface he could find.
“I guess not,” he mumbled, shoving a hand through his dark waves. He swore softly. “There’s . . . something I’ve been keeping a secret,” he said. “But you can’t tell anyone.”
“Okay . . .” That sounded ominous.
He let out a huge sigh. “I sent scouts to search for Lor after we first landed in the bog. They’re mercenaries for hire, a group of them I found in a nearby town.
I didn’t tell them who I was or why I needed to find this man.
Just that I did. I paid them half the promised money and told them they’d get the other half if they could give me his location. ”
“What?” I stiffened. “Are you serious? And you didn’t say anything?”
“I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, and honestly, I was afraid if I did say something, Wolfe would insist on being the one to go after him, and I didn’t want him doing that after he’d just found the love of his life.”
I nodded, understanding why Cillian might’ve kept it a secret.
“The mercenaries finally returned a few months ago, and they found him. And he gave them this.”
Cillian fished into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of parchment, holding it out for me.
I took it with a shaking hand and opened it, reading what I immediately recognized as Lor’s handwriting. My heart clenched at the sight of the familiar loops and swirls after so long.
I’m sorry, but you need to forget about me. I am never returning home.
—L
“He knew,” Cillian said. “I didn’t tell those mercenaries any details about our family, our names.
But Lor knew who sent them, and that’s what he sent back.
A fucking note.” Cillian’s jaw locked. “He doesn’t want to come home.
He wants to stay with the brotherhood. It’ll kill Wolfe if he finds out. It’ll kill Mother.”
I didn’t disagree. I handed the parchment back to Cillian, my heart feeling like it had been stomped on all over again. We all missed Lor so much and had spent many years mourning him. When Wolfe revealed he was alive, it had sparked some hope in us. Now it felt like I was grieving all over again.
“Maybe someone forced him to write that.”
Cillian shook his head, shoulders slumping. “I don’t think so, Nevan.”
I hadn’t been the only one keeping secrets, and I could see the toll this secret had taken on my younger brother. All my anger melted away. “I’m sorry you’ve been keeping this to yourself.”
A guilty look flashed in his ice blue eyes, and I raised my brows. “Or have you told someone?”
“Ceri knows,” he said. “I needed to tell someone, and I knew I could trust her.”
If I had a huge secret like that, I’d have told someone too.
Enid. I’d have told Enid.
My head sank into my hands. “What are we going to do?”
Cillian put a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do. He made his choice clear. Are you going to be okay?”
“Yes. No.” I sighed. “Fuck. I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong?” Cillian tipped his head. “Other than you finding out our brother wants nothing to do with us and is working for a group actively trying to destroy our city.”
I toyed with a pair of tweezers lying on the tray next to me. “I told Enid I loved her, and she rejected me.”
Cillian shot to his feet. “What?”
I held up my hand. “Don’t threaten to exile her again.”
“I wasn’t going to, okay? The town vote thing was stupid. She won’t be getting exiled. I just . . . I don’t get it.”
“It’s pretty simple, Cillian. She said she loves me, too, but has no interest in a relationship. Sound familiar?” I widened my eyes at him.
Cillian had also never been interested in a relationship, more of a playboy than anything else—until he’d become High Prince of Fairwitch and couldn’t exactly be a playboy anymore. Not openly anyway.
“She’s lying,” Cillian said.
“How could you possibly know that?”
He was silent for a moment. “I don’t remember much of that night.
But what I do remember was the thorough tongue lashing I got from Enid.
I remember her face so clearly, the way those eyes shot daggers at me.
” He cocked his head. “And I also remember the way she looked at you. Like she would burn down this entire city, bog, world for you. You don’t look at someone like that unless you want to be with them. ”
I snorted. “What, exactly, do you know about wanting to be with someone?”
“Probably nothing,” Cillian said, a wry smile on his face, already looking a little more like himself after revealing his secret.
“If she wanted to be with me, then why wouldn’t she?” I asked.
“Maybe she was scared,” another voice said from the doorway. Wolfe stood there, brows furrowed. “I know a little something about that. I loved Niamh. I knew I loved her, but I’d convinced myself I wasn’t good enough for her.”
For the first time since yesterday, hope flickered inside me. It was faint, only the tiniest spark, but it was there.
Cillian shrugged. “Listen to Wolfe. He knows what he’s talking about. He was the most stubborn ass possible when it came to finally admitting that maybe he deserved Niamh.”
“Thanks,” Wolfe said.
“That’s not actually a terrible idea.” I straightened. Enid grew up surrounded by people who hated her. The very family that was supposed to love and nurture her made her feel like she wasn’t enough, and I wanted to kill them for that.
Of course she’d think she wasn’t worthy of me when that was so far from the truth.
“Uh-oh.” Cillian’s eyes twinkled. “I think he’s forming a plan.”
Wolfe’s lips twitched. “About time.”
“So what are you going to do?” Cillian asked.
“I don’t know, but I think I’m going to need your help.”